Global Policy Forum

The U.N. Security Council has passed a U.S.-drafted resolution referring for the first time to a Palestinian state existing side by side with Israel. The 14-0 vote late on Tuesday, with Syria abstaining, also marked the first time the 15-nation council had approved a resolution on the Middle East since October 2000 and was the first text in recent memory touching on the troubled region to be written by Washington.

U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said Washington's surprise move aimed to give momentum to the peace mission being launched this week by U.S. Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni. The vision of a Palestinian state had been expressed before by both President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell, Negroponte added.

Palestinian U.N. representative Nasser al-Kidwa, more accustomed to criticizing the United States for obstructing its plans, had rare praise for the U.S. resolution as ``something which we believe will help the situation on the ground.''

Israeli U.N. Ambassador Yehuda Lancry termed the resolution balanced -- ``which is quite a novelty for Israel'' -- and expressed hope that Zinni's peace mission would succeed in leading to a cease-fire and ultimately to a resumption of peace talks.

But Syria's U.N. envoy, Mikhail Wehbe, dismissed the text as ``a weak resolution that fails to deal with the root cause of the problem -- namely the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.'' He said Damascus had decided to abstain rather than vote against the text because it ``did not want to break the unity of the council.''

"AFFIRMING A VISION'' OF PALESTINIAN STATE

The United States, Israel's closest ally, has in the past more typically used the threat of its veto power to block resolutions proposed to the council by Arab nations. It has argued that proposed solutions to the crisis should come from the parties and be acceptable to both sides. Tuesday's vote fell on a day that Israeli forces killed 31 Palestinians in their biggest offensive in the West Bank and Gaza since Israel captured the territories in the 1967 Middle East war.

The resolution said the council was ``affirming a vision of a region where two states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side within secure and recognized borders.'' A U.S. official said the phrase had been plucked from a speech by Powell. The resolution also demanded an ``immediate cessation of all acts of violence, including all forms of terror, provocation, incitement and destruction'' and called on Israelis and Palestinians to work together toward a cease-fire with an eye to resuming peace negotiations.

Washington, Israel's closest ally, put its draft forward after Syria pressed for a text, backed by Arab nations, that referred to a need for the Jewish state, as ``the occupying power,'' to abide by international protections for civilians caught in war. Council envoys said the U.S. move caught Syria's U.N. envoy completely off guard.

The U.S. draft surfaced hours after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan unleashed his toughest criticism to date of Israel, appealing to it end its ``illegal occupation'' of Palestinian lands and curb its attacks on civilians. Aides said it was the first time Annan had branded the occupation as illegal.

In an emotional plea delivered at a public council meeting, Annan said the scale of the Middle East carnage had soared to horrifying levels and urged leaders on both sides to ``lead your peoples away from disaster.'' He said Israeli attacks on civilian areas, ``the assassinations, the unnecessary use of lethal force, the demolitions and the daily humiliation of ordinary Palestinians'' were fueling the fires of Palestinian ``hatred, despair and extremism.'' He also urged the Palestinians to stop all acts of terror, saying they had ``played their full part in the escalating cycle of violence, counterviolence and revenge.''

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.